The rest of my childhood was pretty typical. At least it was typical for me!

I learned to play golf at a very young age. While not that great, I did have fun. I even won a few "junior championships" at our local golf course.

I remember one time playing in the tournament, I was using a solid plastic ball. Now this was probably in the early 1960s and solid plastic balls were supposed to be the best thing and would last for a long time with no slices in the outer covering.

Not that day! I clobbered that ball on hole number 16! It sailed down the fairway, right in the middle! I went to hit my second shot and discovered I had a major flaw in my golf ball. It broke! Yup. I had two golf balls as it broke in half! We had an adult with us and I was allowed, per his decision, that I could drop another ball with no penalty. Two major points - I picked the half that went the furthest and used a "real" golf ball instead of plastic!

One of the big events in our town of Swanton was the Corn Festival. This took place in September, after school started. It was HUGE! We'd have people from all over the area come to town for carnival games, food, and of course, the beer tent that was on Broadway across from Hub's Bar.

Main Street was closed the entire weekend for Corn Festival. There was a parade the first day. All the grades had a float in the parade. I remember one year, I'm not sure of the theme of the festival, but our class float was "Little Men and Little Women" based on Louisa May Alcott's book. All of the girls had "hats" made of paper plates that we had painted. The plates were cut with a slit on either side to insert a piece of a crepe paper streamer. The streamer was paced across the top, inserted in the slits, then tied under our chins to make a hat.

Corn Festival is still around, but is now just a one day event at the park on Main Street. There is still the great parade, but no children on floats as it is held prior to school beginning. It's too bad those kids don't have the opportunity to wear paper plate hats!

I was a fairly good student during elementary school. My mom, Joanne, was a voracious reader. Coming home from school, I remember her sitting on the sofa reading. A real "book worm' and I'm so glad I am too!

Mom wanted me to be a reader too, so she taught me at home. By the time I was four, I was reading, and reading very well. My favorite children's book was about "Hullaballo the Kangaroo" ("who lived on a hill in the city zoo. Hullaballo had two children too, a girl named Pink and a boy named Blue.") As you can tell, I read Hullaballo so much that I memorized it. I still remember the first lines to this day. Any book I could get my hands on, such as my Grandma Lou's book Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porterwas read again and again.

By the time I started kindergarten in the fall of 1954, I was able to read. It was really boring having to sit in school learning the alphabet when I already knew it! I'm sure other kids were totally bored with arithmetic while I struggled. The ol' "tit for tat" principle.

I also loved geography. I had a puzzle that was a map of the United States with each state being a separate piece. This was so long ago the puzzle was plastic, something that wouldn't be sold now to kids. Anyway, there were two little holes in each plastic "state." One hole was for a little sign indicating a capitol building with the name of the city on it. The other hole was for a little sign with the major produce of that state. By the time I entered first grade, I knew all the states and all the capitols of those states. However, there were only 48 states at that time!

Our school bus carried high school students as well as us elementary kids. The big kids had great fun quizzing me about the states and capitols. And I never got one wrong!